In the field of psychology, an interesting phenomenon exists called the ‘Madonna-Whore Dichotomy’ or the ‘Madonna-Whore Complex.’ The Madonna-Whore Dichotomy is a masculine state of mind mainly affecting men which classifies all women as either “good,” “chaste” and “pure” (Madonna), or “bad,” “promiscuous” and “seductive” (whore). These men have convinced themselves – often for religious or cultural reasons – that only the “Madonna” woman is worthy of love and affection, and hence they strive to establish healthy, long-term relationships such as marriage with this woman.
On the flipside, the same men however feel irresistibly drawn to the sexual energy of the “whore” woman. In fact, they will often go behind their “Madonna” mate’s back to seek out the “whore” for sex. In some extreme cases, men suffering from this complex are unable to achieve satisfactory sexual release with the “Madonna” woman, and find themselves drawn to the “whore” in what often becomes a destructive cycle of domestic dissatisfaction, risky sex and post-coital loathing.
The mental pathology of a man suffering from the Madonna-Whore complex might seem like an odd metaphor to use in explaining the CBN’s recent decision to throttle innovation yet again. When contextualised as part of a wider pan African societal problem that stems from the basic inability of the modern African state to transcend its colonial underpinnings, I promise it will start to make sense, so stay with me here.
History of the economic Madonna-Whore Complex
The colonial African state existed for one purpose alone – to extract rents and remit them to the European mother state. It is for this reason for example, that Nigeria’s legacy rail network moves from south to north, in defiance of the established trading routes in West Africa which have always been West to East. It was not in the British colonial government’s interest to grow the Nigerian economy or catalyse prosperity for the colonial subjects. The state only existed to do the divine duty of remitting tribute to London as God surely intended. The country merely existed to serve the state, and this was the “right” and accepted state of affairs.
After the success of the heavily rushed African independence project in the 1960s, the new African post-colonial state had no other template for its existence beyond what it inherited and what it unfortunately picked up from the Cold War-era Marxist school of thought, which reinforced ideas about the primacy of the state over the individual. From Ghana to Tanzania to Burkina Faso to Nigeria, Africa’s post-independence leadership set about building a governance infrastructure that baked in the arrogance of the colonial government and the obsessive statism of the Soviets.
Julius Nyerere’s “Ujamaa” philosophy in Tanzania, which failed spectacularly and resulted in severe food shortages and famine, was an example of how this worked. Private property was expropriated by the state and parcelled out under communitarian principles, which predictably did not end well. Across the continent, Africa’s post-independence leaders stuck firmly to the ideological position that freedom from colonialism meant building a nanny state that directly intervened in people’s everyday lives by distributing food rations, controlling the growth of all technology, and fixing consumer prices.
As this paradigm was failing miserably and providing nothing but an endless stream of tinpot military jackboot dictators like Idi Amin, Muhammadu Buhari and Mobutu Sese Seko, it did not escape the notice of both leaders and led, that countries across the Atlantic which employed more capitalistic approaches to governance seemed to be having all the nice things. The cutting edge technology, the booming economies, the happy, well-fed people, the intoxicating sense of social and individual freedom – these were things that everybody craved, but could not have.
The exciting and prosperity-yielding ways of the liberal capitalists were the metaphorical “whore” – a sweet and intoxicating forbidden lust to be enjoyed only by those who could make it out of the open-air prison that is the “Madonna” African State
As long as Africa insisted on sticking to its post-independence ideological “Madonna”, which meant overbearing statism, economic central planning, obsessive overregulation and rule of force, it could only look longingly at the nice things that the Americans or the Japanese or the Germans or the South Koreans took for granted. It became a habit of Africa’s political and economic elite to travel to these places and experience the sweetness of economic and social liberalism, only to return to Africa and do the exact opposite.
The exciting and prosperity-yielding ways of the liberal capitalists were the metaphorical “whore” – a sweet and intoxicating forbidden lust to be enjoyed only by those who could make it out of the open-air prison that is the “Madonna” African State. The unfortunate souls who could not obtain a visa to go experience a satisfying interaction with the capitalist “whore” in Europe or North America would just have to make do with the disappointing missionary experience of mass poverty, technology deficit, primitive protectionism and zero innovation, which have come to characterise the post-colonial African state.
Getting over this nonsensical complex
To a psychologist, the most important part of pulling a patient out of the Madonna-Whore Dichotomy is pointing out that as the name implies, it only works when one crudely reduces an entire world of diversity into just two things. As anyone with sufficient life experience should know, there is actually no such thing as a “Madonna” or a “whore” – those subjective classifications exist entirely in the mind of the sufferer. In other words, the first step on the way out is to acknowledge that there are more than two options.
The man has to learn to acknowledge that his loving, domestic “Madonna” who helps make his life stable and predictable can in fact also be the “Whore” of his fantasies, with no extant contradiction between both identities. Similarly, as the post-independence generation of African leaders slowly dies off, their replacements must learn that there is no conflict between governing in an African context and opening up a country or continent to trade, ideas and technology. The influx of these things will not somehow “drown” Africa and compromise the independence project.
Take Nigeria for example, where notable Maddona-Whore Complex sufferer, Adams Oshiomhole at the turn of the century passionately argued against licensing GSM telecoms operators to enter the Nigerian market in favour of making NITEL the largest state telecoms monopoly in the world. According to Oshiomhole in 2001, the entrance of telecoms investors would result in exploitation of Nigerians by catering only to the rich and keeping telephony out of the reach of the “masses.” MTN and Econet Wireless were the capitalist “Whore” seeking to devour a newly democratic African nation, while NITEL and its standard bearer Oshiomhole were the familiar and dependable “Madonna”. How did that turn out?
Well 20 years later, we know that this was emphatically the worst prediction ever made in Nigeria. Nigeria now has over 180 million active telephone lines spread out across four major operators, making it the 7th largest telecoms market on earth. In 2019, telecoms contributed 10.11 percent to Nigeria’s total GDP figure and it is almost impossible to calculate the extent of the impact it has had on Nigerian society and the economy.
Despite all this, is 2021 Nigeria all that different from that of 2001? Not really. Everything has changed, but really nothing has changed at all – which is the point a psychologist would make to a patient recovering from the Madonna-Whore Dichotomy. The morbid fear of free markets, technological disruption and new ideas by Africa’s economic and political establishment is completely misplaced and unnecessary. We can have both the wifely Madonna we have known since 1960 and the terrifying but irresistible free-market economic whore together in one national package – the conflict between the two only exists in our heads.
From being a preacher of juche autarky economics in 2001, Adams Oshiomhole today has several mobile devices operating on the wireless networks he once denounced, and a beautiful wife from Cape Verde. And despite all that has changed about him in the intervening 20 years, he is still very much the Adams Oshiomhole he always was. Everything changed, but nothing changed at all.
If that doesn’t illustrate my point, I don’t know what will.
